Fine Arts Center

Crafts + Cocktails
2022-10-27 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Denver) | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
A fun filled evening of crafting awaits! Instructor Julia Barrett will provide supplies and step-by-step instructions to create your own macramé sunflower wall hanging, just in time for Fall! Space is limited so grab a friend and buy your tickets today!
Cash bar available. Attendees will receive free admission to the museum from 4-5 p.m. the day of the event. Bar will open at 5 p.m.
FAC members: $20
General admission: $30
SOLD OUT

Screening of Extraterrestres (2017, Puerto Rico/Venezuela); Q&A to follow
2022-11-03 18:30 - 20:00 | Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
About the film: Teresa is a vegetarian and a successful astrophysicist who lives with her girlfriend, Daniela, in the Canary Islands. After years of self-exile, Teresa returns to Puerto Rico to invite the family to her wedding. But the Díaz family, who lives in a rural town, are a conservative and well-to-do family who control much of the poultry industry in Puerto Rico. No one in the family is who they appear and none is willing to reveal their most intimate secrets, so once back home, Teresa chooses to lie. When several acts of sabotage force the closure of the family business and Daniela, tired of waiting for Teresa, travels to Puerto Rico to meet her new family, the Díaz family nucleus collapses like a supernova star, unleashing a chain reaction that puts in evidence that we are all “Extraterrestrials.”
Free and open to the public.
This event is related to the exhibition Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean.
Location: Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center, Room 131 at Colorado College
Image: Suchitra Mattai, Tethered (detail), 2020, vintage saris, wire, and found object, dimensions variable, courtesy of K Contemporary, Denver, photo by Wes Magyar. On view in Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean.

Songs from the Border
2022-11-03 19:30 - 21:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Featuring the creator and performer of Where Did We Sit on the Bus?, Songs from the Border is a limited run concert of original music about immigration, identity, and where we belong, starring Satya Chávez and Brian Quijada.

FAC Member Tour: Chicanx Landscapes
2022-11-05 12:00 - 13:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join Michael Christiano, Director of Visual Arts and Museum and Mariana Rodríguez, feminist poet and translator for a tour and poetry reading in Chicanx Landscapes. Rodriguez, who teaches in the Spanish Department at Colorado College, will read selections from her own work and others that relate to the art on view. The exhibition explores landscapes as a system of ecology, history, culture and belonging from a Chicanx perspective with new works presented by the interdisciplinary artist collaborative, Desert ArtLAB. Desert ArtLAB is an interdisciplinary artist collaborative co-directed by April Bojorquez (she/her) and Matthew Garcia (he/him) whose work promotes Indigenous perspectives on ecological practice and climate change.
Not a member? Sign up now for as little as $5 a month!
RSVP for tour

Yoga at the FAC
2022-11-06 10:30 - 11:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join teacher Misty Banta for a one-hour yoga class in our beautiful glass-walled Smith Family gallery. Participants are invited to stay and enjoy the museum for free after class. All experience levels welcome.
Please bring your own mat. Water is allowed during class, but not in the museum galleries. Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Fine Arts Center (you’ll also have the option to donate at class).
SPACE IS LIMITED, PLEASE RSVP

Poetry Reading and Workshop with Rajiv Mohabir
2022-11-07 15:00 - 16:30 | CO
About Rajiv Mohabir: ​​Rajiv holds a BA from the University of Florida in religious studies, an MSEd in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Long Island University, Brooklyn, and an MFA in poetry and literary translation from Queens College, CUNY where he was Editor in Chief of Ozone Park Literary Journal. While in New York working as a public school teacher, Rajiv also produced the nationally broadcast radio show KAVIhouse on JusPunjabi (2012-2013). He received his PhD in English from the University of Hawai’i and is currently Translations Editor at Waxwing Journal and teaches in the BFA/MFA program in the Writing, Literature, and Publishing department at Emerson College. In “Coolitude: Poetics of the Indian Labor Diaspora” In this project I take a look at the cultural productions of writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers who descend from indentured laborers from Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname, Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji, and those in second diaspora in England, the United States, and Canada. I chart the poetics of Coolitude, itself a queer cousin of Césaire’s, Senghor’s, and Damas’s Négritude. Coolitude uses the labor economy of the British Empire to suggest a similarity in identities, not based on racial or ethnic sameness, but rather the function of the economic category Coolie.
This event is related to the exhibition Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean.
Location: Max Kade Theater, Armstrong Hall, Colorado College

Converging Journeys: Thomas Blackshear, Dean Mitchell, and Ezra Tucker
2022-11-09 19:00 - 20:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join us for an intimate discussion between Thomas Blackshear, Dean Mitchell, and Ezra Tucker as they discuss their creative practices, which move across design & illustration, commercial, and fine art. Their careers have spanned more than four decades and are marked by a commitment to creative exploration as well as charting new pathways for artists of color in historically white industries.
Event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP

Known for his dramatic lighting and sensitivity to mood, Thomas Blackshear has produced illustrations for advertising, books, calendars, collectors’ plates, greeting cards, magazines, postage stamps, and national posters. His clients range from Disney Pictures, Lucasfilm, and Universal Studios to International Wildlife and National Geographic magazines. He has illustrated thirty United States postage stamps and a commemorative stamp book titled I have a Dream. In 1995, he created Ebony Visions, which has been the number-one-selling Black figurine collectible in the United States for the past twenty years.
His recent Western Nouveau paintings have been featured on the covers of Art of the West magazine and Western Art Collector. In 2020, Blackshear was inducted into the Hall of Fame for the Society of Illustrators.
Dean Mitchell is proficient in watercolors, egg tempera, oils, and pastels. During his four-decade-long career, Mitchell has become well known for his figurative works, landscapes, and still lifes. At the age of twenty-three, he became the youngest artist ever accepted into the National Watercolor Society; just five years later, he was admitted into the American Watercolor Society. He holds numerous gold medals from these and other prestigious painting associations worldwide. His awards now number in the hundreds, and his work is featured in museums, corporate, and private collections throughout the country. The New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman praised him as a “modern-day Vermeer.”
After thirty plus years of illustration and commercial art success, Ezra Tucker embarked on a fine art career, determined to create his own style of artistic beauty in both the portrayal of wildlife and historical personalities and events surrounding the settling of the American Western Frontier. This 18-year journey has proved fulfilling and rewarding to his artistic vision and ambitions. Tucker is widely admired for his paintings that portray wildlife, notably mammals but also birds as well as historic scenes.
The Black Experience in the history of the American West has been untold by the historical record and visibly absent from many of our nation’s museum collections. Tucker’s historical paintings pictorially tell the stories of people of African descent: cowboys, bronco busters, Pony Express riders, Buffalo Soldiers, Black Seminole Scouts and other Americans.

This program is presented in partnership with Broadmoor Galleries and Jewelry Company.

The Reminders with CC songwriting students
2022-11-11 15:00 - 17:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
A musical collaboration between CC Mobile Arts, CC Music Department, and the Fine Arts Center, featuring a full set by The Reminders and fresh collaborative songs created by CC students. Students’ songs are musical settings of text written for this project by persons incarcerated at the Woman’s Ward at El Paso County Jail.
The performance will be held in the Fine Arts Center’s Music Room. Free and open to the public.

Crafts + Cocktails
2022-11-17 17:30 - 18:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
A fun filled evening of crafting awaits! Instructor Sophia Hanna will provide supplies and step-by-step instructions to create your own snow globe, just in time for Winter! Turn plain mason jars into sparkling snow globes filled with whimsical holiday figurines and miniatures. Space is limited so grab a friend and buy your tickets today!
Cash bar available. Attendees will receive free admission to the museum from 4-5 p.m. the day of the event. Bar will open at 5 p.m.
FAC members: $20
General admission: $30
Buy tickets

Redefining Native Art: Conversations of Contemporary Native Art with Anna Tsouhlarakis and Melanie Yazzie
2022-12-01 18:00 - 19:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join the FAC for a critical conversation about redefining perspectives and perceptions of contemporary Native Art. In conjunction with the exhibition, Action/Abstraction Redefined, artists Anna Tsouhlarakis and Melanie Yazzie will share their perspectives as artists, educators, and activists of what Native Art is, isn’t, and can be in our contemporary world. This conversation will be facilitated by Learning & Engagement Intern, Katie Norton ‘24.
Event is free and open to the public.

About the Panelists:
Anna Tsouhlarakis
Navajo + Creek + Greek
Anna Tsouhlarakis works in sculpture, installation, video, and performance. She received her BA from Dartmouth College with degrees in Native American Studies and Studio Art. She went on to receive her MFA from Yale University in Sculpture.
Her work has been part of national and international exhibitions at venues such as Rush Arts in New York, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Crystal Bridges Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, the Heard Museum, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Tsouhlarakis has participated in various art residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Yaddo, and was the Andrew W. Mellon Artist-in-Residence at Colorado College for the 2019-2020 academic year.
Tsouhlarakis lives and works in Colorado.
Melanie Yazzie
Dine
Melanie Yazzie is Professor of Art Practices and Head of Printmaking at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. Her works belong to many collections such as: the Denver Art Museum, Anchorage Museum of History & Art, the Art Museum of Missoula, the Institute of American Indian Arts, the Kennedy Museum of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and in countries such as, New Zealand, France, Russia, Canada, Estonia, Northern Ireland, Korea, China, United Kingdom, and Australia. She is known for organizing print exchange projects that connect communities across the world. She makes prints, sculptures, paintings, does surface design and jewelry design. She has been represented by the Glenn Green Galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico since 1994.
Katie Norton ‘24
Katie Norton is a Junior at Colorado College studying Museum Studies and Anthropology with a focus in archaeology. In her work at the FAC as the Action/Abstraction Redefined Learning & Engagement Intern, Kaite has led tours, created learning objectives, organized a virtual exhibit, and works to connect people with resources relevant to contemporary Native Art.
Katie comes to Colorado College from outside of Cleveland, Ohio. In her spare time, she likes to travel around Colorado and enjoy the beauty of the state.

Top image: Mike Medicine Horse Zillioux, (Akimel O’odham/Cheyenne/Pawnee,1952–2020), The Day Jackson Pollack [sic] Became A Christian (detail), 1974, Acrylic, rawhide, salt on canvas, MoCNA Collection (P-22), Gift of the Artist

Screening of Todos se van (2015, Cuba/Colombia)
2022-12-01 18:30 - 20:00 | Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
About the film: Everybody Leaves is based on the award-winning novel by Wendy Guerra and is a celebration of freedom and a confrontation of the authoritarian Cuban regime of the 1980s, which led to one of the country’s worst economic crises. Eight-year-old Nieve is the object of her parents’ custody battle. Her mother, Eva, is an artist who believes in the revolution and disagrees with censorship or authoritarianism. She is re-married to Dan, a Swede working on the construction of a nuclear plant. Nieve’s father Manuel is a playwright who sacrifices his artistic career to write government propaganda in a remote area of the country. Through her diary entries, Nieve reveals intimate details of a turbulent family life while painting an authentic portrait of the social and political unrest in Cuba under the rule of Castro.
Free and open to the public.
Location: Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center, Room 131 at Colorado College
Image: Suchitra Mattai, Tethered (detail), 2020, vintage saris, wire, and found object, dimensions variable, courtesy of K Contemporary, Denver, photo by Wes Magyar. On view in Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean.

It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play
2022-12-01 19:30 - 21:00, 2022-12-04 14:00 - 15:30, 2022-12-07 19:00 - 20:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
See this beloved American holiday classic come to life on stage as a captivating 1940s radio broadcast. With the help of a virtuosic, tight-knit ensemble that embodies a few dozen characters and live foley artistry, the story of idealistic George Bailey unfolds as he considers ending his life one fateful Christmas Eve. This holiday season, join us for a story of hope, faith, and the power of community.

FAC Member Tour: The Insiders
2022-12-03 12:00 - 13:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join us in the FAC’s Deco Lounge for a tour of the new exhibit The Insiders, a group show featuring none other than the FAC’s own patron experience staff and artistis! The artists will guide you through the exhibit, elaborating on their individual pieces and their own artistic practices. Get to know our staff a little better and learn about their art!
Not a member? Sign up now for as little as $5 a month!
RSVP for tour

Canceled: Yoga at the FAC
2022-12-04 10:30 - 11:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join teacher Misty Banta for a one-hour yoga class in our beautiful glass-walled Smith Family gallery. Participants are invited to stay and enjoy the museum for free after class. All experience levels welcome.
Please bring your own mat. Water is allowed during class, but not in the museum galleries. Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Fine Arts Center (you’ll also have the option to donate at class).
This event is canceled due to our teacher’s illness.

In Conversation: Alexis Pauline Gumbs
2022-12-05 16:00 - 19:00 | Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
“Made the World by Breathing:” An Oracle Ceremony | 4 p.m.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs in Conversation with Professor Heidi R. Lewis | 5 p.m.
Join this virtual talk and workshop with Queer Black Troublemaker, Feminist Love Evangelist, and aspirational cousin to all sentient beings, Alexis Pauline Gumbs.
Poetry reading by Desiree C. Bailey | 6 p.m.
Q&A with Desiree C. Bailey, Facilitated by Professor Lisa Marie Rollins | 6:30 p.m.

Sista Docta Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a Queer Black Feminist Love Evangelist and an aspirational cousin to all life. She is/they are the author of several books, most recently Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals and the co-founder of the Mobile Homecoming Trust, an intergenerational experiential living library of Black LBGTQ brilliance.
Desiree C. Bailey is the author of “What Noise Against the Cane” (Yale University Press, 2021), which won the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and was longlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Desiree is from Trinidad and Tobago, and Queens, New York. She is the Writer-in-Residence at Clemson University.

This event is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean.
Thanks to a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, this event is free and open to the public. Refreshments provided.

Member/Subscriber Holiday Shopping Night
2022-12-08 16:00 - 18:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Don’t miss this fun opportunity to finish up your holiday shopping at the FAC’s shop by Ladyfingers. Enjoy hot chocolate and cider while perusing the wide variety of handmade, locally sourced, and inclusive goods. In addition to the 10% member discount on all items (which subscribers will also receive during the event), you’ll receive a special 25% discount on any FAC apparel or merchandise.
RSVP for shopping night
Make an evening out of it and stay for the show. Make any purchase at the event and receive 50% off admission to It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play that evening

Naughty & NICE Holiday Cabaret with J. Chang-Tablada
2022-12-10 18:30 - 19:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Naughty & NICE Holiday Cabaret with J. Chang-Tablada debuts in the nick of time for the 2022 Holiday Season. This one-man 60-minute show features heart-warming holiday classics with a twist of spice that invites audiences to reminisce, raise a glass, laugh-out-loud, and sing along.
A storyteller at heart, world-class pianist and vocalist J. Chang-Tablada draws audience members in with fresh interpretations of timeless classics by celebrated artists like Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Donnie Hathaway interwoven with spirited, tongue-in-cheek numbers from Elvis and Jimmy Butler (to name a few).
Chang-Tablada’s memorable performance strikes a chord with seasonal favorites like “This Christmas” and “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve” while adding unexpected and delightful holiday color with lesser known tunes like “Trim Your Tree.”
Chang-Tablada is one of Colorado Springs’ most beloved and prolific Music Directors, known for his work with the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, Theatreworks and Millibo Art Theatre. He also served as Music Director for the Colorado Theatre Guild’s 16th Annual Henry Awards in Denver, Colorado in July of 2022. An accomplished entertainer in his own right, J. frequently takes the stage himself, most recently in performances at 54 Below in New York City and in his “Sing-a-long with Jerry McCauley and Friends” concerts featured at the Green Box Arts Festival this summer.

Join us in Deco Lounge immediately following the 5 p.m. performance of It’s a Wonderful Life. The bar will be open.
$10 suggested donation
